9. Carex scabrata Schwein.

Pl. 32 i–l; Map 125

Plants monoecious, with long-creeping rhizomes, forming dense clumps or colonies. Vegetative growth consisting of basal leaves with overlapping sheaths that are often broader than those of flowering stems and usually somewhat corrugated in cross-section, located at the tips of rhizome branches. Flowering stems 30–90 cm long, erect, sharply trigonous, glabrous. Leaves basal and on the basal third of the stems, shorter than to about as long as the stems, glabrous, the basal leaves with somewhat reduced blades, the basal leaf sheaths of the previous year persistent, brown. Leaf blades 10–40 cm long, 4–14 mm wide, thin and usually spreading to arched, the margins and midrib minutely roughened or toothed, the margins flat. Leaf sheaths with the tip concave, the ligule longer than wide and V-shaped, the ventral side usually thin, papery, and yellowish white, the lowermost sheath bases often tinged light brown. Spikes 4–9 per stem, the bracts leaflike, mostly longer than the inflorescence, lacking a sheath or nearly so. Terminal spike staminate, 15–40 mm long, short-stalked, linear, the staminate scales 3.5–6.0 mm long, narrowly elliptic or lanceolate, white to tan, with a green midrib. Lateral spikes 3–8, pistillate, loosely spaced near the tip of the axis, the uppermost sessile or nearly so, the lowermost with a long, minutely roughened stalk, ascending, 10–50 mm long, 5–8 mm wide, narrowly oblong in outline, with numerous densely spaced perigynia, the pistillate scales 2.0–5.5 mm long, lanceolate, pointed at the tip, light brown to reddish brown, the midrib usually green. Perigynia 3.0–4.5 mm long, bluntly trigonous in cross-section, the main body elliptic-obovate in outline, tapered abruptly to a beak at the tip, tapered to a short, stalklike base, the surface usually with 2 prominent, longitudinal ribs on opposite sides, otherwise few-nerved, roughened with minute, stiff hairs, green, the beak 1–2 mm long, about as long as the main body, not flattened, somewhat outwardly curved, with short, soft, inconspicuous teeth at the tip. Styles withering during fruit development, jointed to the main body of the fruit, which is beakless or short-beaked at maturity. Stigmas 3. Fruits 1.3–1.7 mm long, obovate in outline, sharply trigonous in cross-section with concave sides and thickened angles, brown. May–July.

Known from a single historical collection from Greene County (northeastern U.S. and adjacent Canada south to Georgia and west to Minnesota and Missouri). Habitat in Missouri unknown, but it should be expected in bottomland forests and on stream banks.